Energy Project of the Year

Posted on 11/15/2018

CCG was recognized by the Association of Energy Engineers with the Ohio Chapter Energy Project of the Year for the control's energy upgrade at Strasburg-Franklin Local Schools.

At the end of 2015 Strasburg-Franklin’s Local Schools reached out to us to help them. Since their K-12 building was constructed, they were having problems and had had numerous teams come in to fix them but none of them could address the comfort and high utility costs, so he asked us to call them.

We came in and did an audit and immediately found many issues. Things like the way the HVAC equipment was being controlled by the building automated system including the boiler system not programmed to utilize condensation, the chilled water system sequencing did not utilize VFDs, large volumes of outside air were being brought into the building, and heating and cooling ran simultaneously all summer. It was also discovered that room temperature sensors were not wired to the proper VAV box controller.

After starting the project, we found a lot of other issues. Things like make-up water for the chillers was improperly piped so the system was unable to make up water. The chilled water system was operating at dangerously low pressures, duct runs to VAV boxes were too small restricting airflow and significant openings were found in the building envelope at the roof/wall detail.

So, CCG did a controls only energy upgrade. Strasburg was spending $2.11 per square foot and after the project got it down to $.83 a square foot. The total utility consumption was reduced by 66%!

The most important thing we accomplished was getting the comfort under control and the wild swings in temperature throughout the day were now under control and as we know that has a direct impact on productivity.